It’s not impossible that this piece is a pitch-perfect parody that slipped past the editors. Unlikely, but not impossible …”
…For example, “Calculate the total force experienced by rapper 50 Cents as he got shot by 9 bullets each with a mass of …”?
COMMENTS:
* A black physicist can argue that Black Holes Matter.
* I like the idea of young physics students of color “interrogating” the likes of Feynman and Fermi, neither of whom was known to suffer fools gladly. I would be willing to bet that they couldn’t sit through one of Feynman’s world famous “undergrad” lectures, delivered more than 50 years ago, and understand any of the concepts in the lecture.
* Logic, math, and physics are all closely related. Ms. Isler’s poor grasp of logic raises the suspicion that she is not well-suited to the study of physics. There are almost no logical connections between her statements, just a free-flowing stream of hurt feelings and resentment.
* Recently watched a PBS doc about the LHC/CERN and the search for the Higgs boson. The title was Particles, IIRC.
The film featured a couple of women: an American post doc and an Italian heading one of the big experiments (who has since been promoted to head of LHC) Also featured an American Jew, an Iranian American, and a Cypriot ex pat. Plenty of other misc Europeans as to be expected. But not a single black person in the film.
The biggest experiments in the history of physics are somehow taking place without the benefit of many persons of color.
* Their questions left many black scientists, myself included, reeling from the psychological blow.
Reeling from the psychological blow. First there was Nancy Hopkins getting the vapors when she choose to listen to Larry Summers speak about evolution and now this.
I have physics degrees from two historically black universities and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from an Ivy League institution.
No one trusts that you earned your degrees or accomplishments because in an environment defined by the presence of Affirmative Action, no one believes that you weren’t admitted or coddled simply because you’re black and your professors and colleagues were instructed to increase diversity at all costs, regardless of merit.
Obviously, black students march into classrooms all over this country and blow physical concepts out of the water with their individual intellects.
I know, right. Terence Howard was on such a path with his math revolution, but then heard the siren call of acting:
The future actor was studying chemical engineering at Pratt — but dropped out when he realized that he fundamentally disagreed with his professors about the basics of math. The argument focused on the simple equation of one times one.
“How can it equal one?” Howard asked Rolling Stone, and the universe. “If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what’s the square root of two? Should be one, but we’re told it’s two, and that cannot be.”
* The notion that 1 times 1 equals 1 is clearly a concept rooted in cishet whiteness that denies the lived experiences of people of color and non-binary individuals, especially those who have experienced intersectionality. Also, considering that 1 is the loneliest number, that equation is clearly a tool designed to increase societal alienation.
* To answer Justice Roberts, without black students in physics classes there would be nobody to remind everyone that the terms ‘black hole” and “black body” are unbelievably racist.
* I’m reminded of what Don Barry, astronomer at Cornell, said about Neil deGrasse Tyson when asked, “Has Tyson done any real science? He seems to be a media celebrity, but when I look in the Smithsonian/NASA ADS, I can find no record of scholarly work in science, except for popular books and social commentary. Is he in fact a practicing astrophysicist?”
Barry replied:
“Not since graduate school (he did not successfully progress towards a degree at UT/Austin, and convinced Columbia to give him a second try). Aside from the obligatory papers describing his dissertation, he’s got a paper on how to take dome flats, a bizarre paper speculating about an asteroid hitting Uranus, and courtesy mentions *very* late in the author lists of a few big projects in which it is unclear what, if anything, of substance he contributed. No first author papers of any real significance whatsoever. Nor is there any evidence that he has been awarded any telescope time on significant instruments as PI since grad school, despite the incredibly inflated claims in his published CVs. He cozied up to Bush and pushed Bush’s version of man to the Moon, Mars, and Beyond, and now gets appointed to just about every high level political advisory board. To an actual astronomer, this is almost beyond inconceivable. It’s just bizarre. To answer Delong’s question, no: he is not a practicing astrophysicist.”
* I would pay a decent amount of money to hear what the black perspective on astrophysics is.
* A while ago I learned that the point on a body’s orbit around a black hole where the body comes closest to the hole is called perimelasma. It’s a beautiful word. I think of it every time I approach the point of my daily commute that’s closest to an unsafe neighborhood.
* Dr. Isler’s essay perfectly expresses the infuriating and frustrating racism inherent in the need for “minorities,” and African Americans in particular it seems, to justify their worthiness in any area they are typically underrepresented, and this is implicitly done by having to justify how their presence benefits the vast majority of European Americans present. How demeaning to African Americans — and to everyone, in fact.
Of course, civil rights advocates have been forced by conservative entrenchment to plead the (very real) benefits of racial diversity in the academy rather than being able to assume that the benefits of openness and diversity and the equality of all are, well, self-evident.
My prayer for our nation, the answer to which is by no means assured, is that some day the overt racism in Justices Scalia and Roberts’ questioning — and likely ruling — will be as glaringly racist to the vast majority of those of future generations as Supreme Court decisions such as Dred Scott are now.
